Wealthy and educated, Richard Loeb, 18, and Nathan Leopold Jr., 19, were in college when they decided to commit the perfect crime by killing 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks on May 21, 1924. The senseless crime committed by two extremely intelligent young men with no motive shocked the nation. Leopold's glasses found next to Franks' body and a typewriter from which the ransom note was written was all it took to get confessions from the two killers. They were sent to Stateville Prison in Joliet for 99 years for kidnapping and a life sentence for murder.

The Kenwood home of President Barack Obama, where he lived with his family prior to his move to the White House, is one block from the home of one of Chicago's most notorious murderers, as well as his victim.

That bit of trivia never makes it into Tuesday's episode of the PBS series "American Experience" which focuses on Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who were teenagers in 1924 when they killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks — a boy they picked at random and slaughtered seemingly for the thrill of it.

(Some more real estate minutia: The current owners of the Franks home on Ellis Avenue announced plans in September to convert and divide the residence, empty for nearly a quarter of a century, into a pair of condominiums. Those same owners, by the way, live nearby in a home that sits on part of the lot where the Loeb family residence once stood.)

The Franks family was wealthy, as were the families of Leopold and Loeb. The killers were also exceedingly smart, and when they met, four years before they bludgeoned and suffocated Franks, they likely sought one another out, a scholar theorizes in "The Perfect Crime" (9 p.m., WTTW-Ch. 11), because "they sensed another predator in the room and they were drawn to each other."

That's profoundly twisted stuff. Nearly 100 years has passed, and yet any telling of the story requires a good bit of analysis that goes beyond a straightforward recitation of what was reported at the time. You won't find that here.

In just the past two years, true crime documentaries have evolved into incredibly complex chronicles that appeal to audiences in a big way (from the first season of the podcast "Serial" to multipart TV series including "Making a Murderer" and "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst"). TV viewers now expect a deeper dive, and the "American Experience" house style is looking increasingly generic and out of step. "Perfect Crime" may be well-made but feels inconsequential.

Bettmann/Corbis

Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, sons of millionaires and confessed slayers of 14-year-old Robert Franks.

Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, sons of millionaires and confessed slayers of 14-year-old Robert Franks.

(Bettmann/Corbis)

What the episode does have going for it are two things, the first of which is a startling number of archival photos from inside the courtroom. I was struck by an image that was shot from over the judge's shoulder as he confronts a large group clustered at his bench, with famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow just off center, his two clients to his left. In another photo you can see the straw hats and suit jackets of the courtroom spectators hanging from pegs on the wall. It's the small details that make a photo worth staring at for more than a moment.

The other element that gives the episode some life are the reams of newspaper headlines that have been dug up by director Cathleen O'Connell. They become an unintentional comment on the very art of headline writing itself. Every era, it seems, has headlines that point to a kind of stylistic marker for that generation (the BuzzFeed-like "10 things you never knew about …" perhaps being the headline that will define the current era). There are straightforward headlines ("Sons of Millionaires Confess") but also those that are more evocative ("Boys Laugh Until Alibi is Broken"). My favorite involve the psychiatrists — then referred to as alienists; now that's a great piece of retro verbiage — Darrow employed as part of his defense strategy: "Alienist Squad Tests Mind of Leopold, Loeb." Alienist squad! As if it was something out of a Jazz Age episode of "The X-Files."

The Leopold and Loeb case was the first time psychiatrists were brought in to offer testimony that speculated on the myriad Freudian explanations for why a person may have been driven to (or been justified in) committing a crime. The prosecutor, of course, had his own doctors weigh in: "Slayers Sane, Alienists For the State Say."

The real prize uncovered by director O'Connell is a cartoon that ran in the Chicago Tribune under the headline, "That Awkward Moment When, Reading the Alienists' Testimony, We Find We Are All Somewhat Insane." Underneath is a cartoon depicting a train filled with commuters, each reading a copy of the newspaper, with thought bubbles floating overhead that spell out their anxieties: "That description fits me exactly. I must apply for admission to the asylum," and "Well, I guess I'm crazy."

Or how about the photo illustration of Judge John Caverly holding the scales of justice in his hand, the prosecutor balanced on one side, Leopold and Loeb on the other, under the headline "Which Way Will Caverly Incline?"

And yet there is only so much the film can address in its less-than-one-hour running time, which means it glosses over any details about Franks (he and Loeb were cousins) other than the circumstances of his death; Darrow's epic summation (a rambling mess that also became famous for its fiercely argued prose against the death penalty); or how Darrow might have felt about his two clients, who sat behind him smirking throughout the proceedings.

Nor do we learn about the fate of Leopold and Loeb long after they were sentenced to prison.

There's an entire story to be told about their time in lockup, where they remained friends. In 1936 Loeb died at the hands of a fellow inmate who claimed he acted in self-defense, accusing Loeb of attempting to have sex with him (however, there is enough speculation to suggest it might have been the other way around, Loeb killed because he rejected the man).

Leopold was paroled after more than 30 years behind bars (considering just how notorious his case was, it would have been nice if the film explained how or why the parole board gave him his freedom) and cobbled together what appeared to be a satisfying life for himself in Puerto Rico before his death in 1971. None of his time post-prison is touched on in the film. Whether he deserved (or even appreciated) this measure of peace and emotional fulfillment is a matter left unexplored.

A version of this article appeared in print on February 09, 2016, in the Arts + Entertainment section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "PBS' Leopold, Loeb no deep dive like `Serial'" —
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